Monday, January 17, 2011

Chinese Laundry

Last week, while Brad was out of town, the kids and I painted the laundry room. All by ourselves. Big accomplishment, people.

The color is "Haystack" by Martha Stewart and isn't it cheerful? I love it. Originally I wanted blue, but I decided doing laundry makes me blue enough. I need sunshine while I sort.

Anyway, while I painted I listened to this...

Such a fascinating memoir. Chua is a Chinese-American mom who has chosen to raise her daughters in the Chinese tradition. As a result they are straight-A students who play concertos at Carnegie Hall. The author is honest and some of her confessions are shocking.

Listening, I felt like a really great mom. Except for the chapters that made me feel like a really lazy American mom. I think this will be my bookclub pick, a real conversation-starter.

Which reminds me, this month our bookclub read Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford. Coincidentally, also a novel about a Chinese-American family. This one is set in Seattle during WWII. A sweet love story with a happy ending! I liked it.

And now, back to the laundry room...

(If you look close you'll see Jake's snow clothes. He and Brad went sledding in the mountains today with the church youth. Also notice Em's swimsuit. She and the twins stayed here and swam in the hot tub, then ran around in flip flops. How fabulous is January in the Valley of the Sun? Please remind me in July.)

8 comments:

gab, i love the 'haystack' color. very you and very chic and it makes your laundry piles look almost charming. way to go. glad you guys get to sled and swim simultaneously. here in idaho we get to drive and skate simultaneously. that element of danger is oh so thrilling as is the nip in the air, aren't you dying to visit?!! miss you. xo.

Bright and sunny like Arizona! I just read about that Chinese mom. She sounds kind of intense, and not much fun. I bet her kids didn't have time to hot-tub. Your style of mothering is much more balanced.

That China Tiger mom is NUTS! I haven't read the book (so here is my uneducated opinion) but the newspaper articles talk about how she yells at her kids and calls them garbage when they don't get first place or master a difficult piano piece? No thank you. I'll take my lazy everyone's a winner American style any day over that.

I love your laundry room. Those neat little cubbies for the baskets? GORGEOUS.